Bad Dreams
by Victoria.Annxx
Summary: Heidi needs help. Desperately. Now. She's hurting in a way nobody could ever understand, and dealing with it in a way that nobody would want to understand. Dean wants to help her. As much as he can. Now. But he can't until she lets him in and admits she needs this help. When that happens he will be ready and waiting. Hoping that its not too late. Hoping she can still be saved.
1. Chapter 1

I decided to post this story to see how it is received. I'm on a sort of hiatus with it after chapter eight, because I'm working on other things. It is based on the season one episode Luna Park and will include all characters, not just Heidi and Dean, but that isn't shown in these first chapters. I have ideas of where to with go with this, it's putting these ideas into chapters that I'm struggling with.

If anyone has any ideas let me know, please review because I would love to hear your thoughts and comments. I am warning you now though, this story contains some graphic details and scenes of self harm. If you read it and have any questions or comments about it feel free to pm me or put it in a review. Hope you enjoy reading. :)

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Chapter 1

The taser. That's what she sees first. Then his face. Always in that order. But the look on his face. The look she saw when he described what he had done, in detail, to his own wife. That was what scared her the most. The one thing she would never forget, ever.

Because the look she saw was pure joy. He was happy about what he had done, he was excited by it. It gave him pleasure to think about. That was when she saw him for who he truly was. Not a husband, shocked and upset and angry over what had happened to his wife. Nor a husband grieving over losing someone so special from his life. The person with whom he was meant to grow old with and love eternally. No.

The man she saw standing in the bedroom doorway was not the same person she had met the day before. That man, the caring, sweet man that she had comforted and prayed for, was gone. Instead, in his place, was pure evil. A monster. That's what she saw every night. Every night that she woke up screaming and crying. Every night that she would take the sleeping pills she had bought off the internet, hoping that they would help her sleep through the night just once.

Every night that she would wake up convinced that she was still there, in that house, with him. Every night those dreams that would make her relive it one more time. A never-ending cycle.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Heidi lay in the bath thinking over the past few weeks. She hadn't had one night where she had slept right through till morning, and it was beginning to take its toll on her. She knew people at work had noticed that she was more tired recently but to their credit no one had said anything.

This morning was no exception. She had woken at ten past four, hyperventilating and defending herself from a man who wasn't there. She had decided not to try and go back to sleep. She was too afraid of what might happen if she did. So instead she got up and ran herself a bath, thinking that she would spend the next hour or so just relaxing, trying to forget that nights dream. She did the same thing every morning that she had woken from a particularly bad one. This was becoming a more frequent event, much to her annoyance.

She glanced over at the razor blade that was lying on the side of the bathtub, her new best friend as of late. She found it helped to clear her mind and rid herself of the dirty feeling she felt every morning, after dreaming of him putting his hands all over her body. It was meant to be a one time thing. Just to calm her down the night it happened. But she found herself going back to it and relying on it more and more. It had been just under a month, and she could see the scars from the first few cuts she had made starting to fade. The fresh ones looked angry and red compared to those light pink-white looking marks.

They reached from the top of her left arm all the way down to her wrist. She had used a razor blade the first time purely out of convenience. She had spotted it lying on the sink when she was in the bathroom, throwing up for the third time since she had gotten home from the police station and hospital.

She had leaned back against the wall when her stomach finally calmed down enough for her to move away from the toilet, and there it was, glinting at her in the light. She had sat there for a few minutes contemplating what she was about to do and thought that it wouldn't do any harm. Just once. She found herself in the exact same position the next night, only then she didn't contemplate anything. She just picked it up and pressed the blade against her flesh and watched as the blood slowly dripped down onto the tile floor.

When her head cleared from the euphoria she felt, she calmly stood up and cleaned away the blood off the floor and washed the blade clean. She found a pen-knife in her drawer the next morning and had started carrying it around with her, so if she needed something to use during the day it was always there. Also she knew that it wouldn't raise any suspicion if somebody found it in her bag, whereas a razor blade was going to cause mass panic among the team.

She still used the razor blade at home, liking how it glided smoothly across her skin. How she felt nothing, no pain or pressure. How she only knew that it had cut through her flesh when the blood appeared on her skin and slowly ran down her arm.

Heidi picked the razor blade up and stared at it before slowly running it across her arm, and then lowering her arm into the water and watched as the blood dispersed in waves of red. When the blood started to clot she stood up and got out of the bathtub, drying herself with a towel and then walking through to her bedroom to get dressed. She didn't put any kind of dressing on the cut because usually it had stopped bleeding enough that she didn't need to, and besides, it would create a lump under her sleeve that she knew somebody would notice. That would then lead to her having to come up with some kind of story as to why she had a bandage on her arm, and also convince them that they didn't need to see it. No, it was way too risky.

When she looked at her clock it read quarter to six, and she had to be in work for quarter to eight. Two hours. She sat down on her bed and thought about what she was doing. Heidi knew that she couldn't carry on like this, her method of coping. It was dangerous and was slowly developing into an addiction. She didn't use the blade every morning, a couple of days out of the week, that's all. But she knew that the longer it carried on the more frequent it would become.

However it wasn't as simple as throwing it away and saying no more. There were more blades in the cupboard in the bathroom, and she also had the pen-knife. There would always be a way of her continuing without using that particular razor blade, and at least with her using that as her 'weapon of choice', it was blunt enough to not do any real damage. It wasn't like she was trying to kill herself. Not yet anyway.

However there was no way she was going to try and stop. If she did she would have nothing to keep herself sane from the dreams that plagued her every night. And if they started interfering in her life during the day as well as at night, it wouldn't be long before the team started to notice real changes with her, and not just the lack of sleep.

This was the only way that she could find peace. She couldn't take that away from herself, not yet. And she couldn't have anybody else taking it away from her either. It was at times like these that she thought of him and how all of this was his fault. How if it had been anyone else he had bumped into at the fairground, everything would have been different. She had never wished what happened to her on anyone else on the team, but she had thought about what would have happened if she had followed Jordan's advice and not gotten so involved like she had. How if she had just walked away, Karl Stevenson wouldn't have attacked her in his house.

He wouldn't have tried to taser her like all his other victims, including his wife; he wouldn't have tried to strangle her on the floor of his living room; she wouldn't have been forced to stab him in the neck with a metal comb; and she wouldn't have been forced to save his life as he begged her to help him. But she did, because of what Jordan told her. They can't choose who they save. It was at times like these that she wished she had ignored him and let Karl die, because at least she would have the peace of mind knowing that the man who did this to her was dead. She would also have been relieved that Becky's killer got what he deserved. However as a member of rescue, it was her job to save people and not wish they were dead no matter what sort of person they were and what they had done in their lives.

When she looked at her clock again she saw that it read quarter past six. She had been sat there thinking over everything for half an hour. She got up and made her way downstairs to finish getting ready for work. When she was ready to leave the house it was twenty to seven, so she decided to go for a drive before making her way to HQ. She thought it would be a good way to clear her mind from all the thinking she had been doing, and instead get her mind ready to deal with another ordinary day that could go so very wrong by the drop of a hat.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Heidi sat at her desk completely zoned out and not paying any attention to her surroundings. Not that there was anything happening, she was alone. It was just after lunchtime and she was the only one in the bullpen. Everybody else was still out on their lunch break. She was happy to be by herself for a while, in the silence and emptiness of HQ. This morning hadn't exactly gone the way anybody was expecting it to. Heidi was especially annoyed, and upset, by what had happened and so just needed some time to herself for a while.

When Michelle had told the team that they could go to lunch Heidi had quickly and quietly left while she was still talking, wanting to get out of there and away before anyone else. She knew that if they managed to corner her and drag her out to lunch with them that they would start asking her questions that she didn't want to answer.

Heidi had gone home and had run straight up to her bathroom. Grabbing the razor blade off the side of the bathtub where she had left it this morning, she quickly took off her jacket and rolled up her sleeve. It was all over in less than a minute, and afterwards she just sat there staring at the newest mark she had made. She had never done this before, especially never two cuts in one day, and told herself it wouldn't happen again. She just needed to make sure she could get through the rest of the day. She had come home instead of using the pen-knife because it was lunch break which meant anybody could have found her. She wasn't going to start making mistakes that could get the team's attention.

When she was sure that it had stopped bleeding she sorted herself out and went downstairs, making herself a hot drink, after deciding that she wasn't hungry but needed to do something while she waited for her lunch break to end. The whole time she kept thinking about what would happen if they tried to talk to her about it when she got back, what if Michelle called her into her office and wanted an explanation as to what Detective Johnson had said to her to make her so angry at him. All of these questions running around inside her head that she couldn't answer was slowly giving her a headache, and she just hoped that the team would leave her alone, giving her time to come up with an answer except for the truth.

Heidi didn't think that Johnson would take the matter this far. He had called her a couple of times but when she had said no to him both times she thought he had gotten the message when she didn't hear from him again. She was grateful that he hadn't told Michelle, knowing that if he really wanted to he would to try and get Heidi to cooperate. But she wasn't going to just back down if Michelle found out. She had said no for a reason, and that wasn't going to change just because Michelle talked to her.

But when he turned up at HQ Heidi knew that he hadn't let it go. Instead, he was trying to be a little more forceful, thinking that if the team found out they could force her into saying yes instead of no, their influence being enough to make her change her mind. When he had walked in Heidi hadn't even seen him at first. She only noticed when Michelle had said hello and moved over to talk to him. She had then looked up from the report she was reading and noticed him talking to Michelle but looking right at her. Michelle's phone then rang and she moved off to answer it, and he moved closer to her. When he was stood right in front of her desk he said her name, but in response she only said one word that she had told him before, and this time she hoped he would listen.

Flashback

Heidi: 'No.'

She stood up and started to walk away but Johnson grabbed her arm making her turn around again.

Johnson: 'Heidi please. I know this is difficult but if you would just change -'

Heidi: 'What, change my mind? No, and I'm tired of telling you the same thing over and over. Now just leave me the hell alone or I'll get a T.R.O. against you. Maybe you'll listen to that.'

With those words she pulled her arm free from his grasp and walked off to the locker rooms where she stayed until she heard him leave, thankful that nobody came down after her. When she went back up to the bullpen she didn't look at anybody, just sat down at her desk and continued reading the report like she was doing before she was interrupted, however very much aware of seven pairs of eyes staring at her the entire time.

End Of Flashback

She was pulled out of her thoughts when she heard Chase and Jordan thundering up the stairs laughing about something, and in order to avoid them talking to her she quickly put her headphones into her ears and started working on a report of a rescue they had attended a couple of days ago.

Luckily her plan worked because when they got to the bullpen and saw her sitting there with her headphones in, they didn't try to bother her or try and distract her, instead letting her get on with what she was doing. They continued to laugh at whatever was so funny to them both, as they sat at their desks doing nothing while enjoying the last few minutes of their lunch break, and very covertly watching Heidi at the same time, really wanting to talk to her but knowing that she was likely to snap at them if they tried. After admitting to themselves that they were scared of her, they decided it was best if they left her alone until the others got back, hoping that one of them would talk to her first so they could find out what the reason was for her rather out of character outburst to Detective Johnson.

However when the rest of the team arrived, it looked like they all had the same thoughts as Chase and Jordan as nobody wanted to be the first one to talk to her, all scared of what her reaction would be. They knew that the 'normal Heidi' didn't shout at somebody like that ever, and when it did rarely happen it was because of a very good reason. It was Dean though, who finally decided that somebody needed to stop acting like a child and just talk to her. She was obviously very upset with Detective Johnson about something, and thinking over her words he knew that this wasn't the first time he had approached her about it and now she had clearly had enough if she was talking about getting a T.R.O. out against him. Seriously, what did a guy have to do in order for them to have a temporary restraining order taken out against them.

And while she was sat there trying not to show that she was upset, they were all making a joke out of who it should be to talk to her, not thinking about how Heidi might be feeling in all of this. He felt ashamed of himself for acting like that and so deciding to be the better person out of them all, Dean stood up and walked round to Heidi's desk, which happened to be right in front of his, knowing that everybody was staring at him but not caring because right now the only person he cared about was Heidi.

He knelt down next to her, tapped her on the arm to get her attention, and when she pulled one of her headphones out he quietly asked if he could talk to her downstairs. The look Dean saw in her eyes, a look of terror mixed with defeat, told him that she had been expecting this to happen after this morning, and was scared about it. He reached out to take her left hand which was under the desk resting on her knee and gave it a gentle squeeze, letting her know that she didn't have to be scared and he just wanted to talk to her.

Heidi, knowing that she could trust Dean with anything, quietly got up from her desk and walked with him downstairs into a small storage room next to the showers where they would have the privacy they needed. She walked in and when Dean had closed the door and turned to look at her, she moved to the far wall of the room and sat down with her knees up by her chest.

She knew that there was no avoiding it now and decided that she might as well just do it and get it over with. She never knew, maybe talking about it would help. Maybe Dean would be able to get Johnson to leave her alone. Whatever happened Heidi knew that she wasn't leaving this room until she had told Dean everything. Except for what she did at lunchtime, the same thing she had been doing for a month now. That secret nobody knew about, nor suspected. While it was still undetected she wasn't going to be stupid and give it up now. She had already made that decision before and was sticking with it.

Dean followed her and sat down as well, leaving some space between them so she wouldn't feel crowded. He didn't say anything for a few minutes, choosing to take a little time to watch her and her body language, and when he was sure that she wasn't going to suddenly jump up and run out of the room he began to talk to her, knowing that if he stayed silent much longer she would probably be so scared that he wouldn't get anything out of her despite being able to get her down here to talk in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Dean: 'I want you to know that I won't judge you. On anything you say. I also want you to know that whatever you say to me here in this room, won't leave this room. Nobody else has to know what you tell me unless you want them to. That's how this works. You can tell me anything, as much or as little as you want, and I won't rush you. We can sit here for as long as you like. Just know that I want to help you in anyway I can.'

He finished speaking and then waited for Heidi to decide whether she wanted to talk or not, really hoping she would so he knew they had at least made some progress by coming down here. He watched as she thought about what he had said, and then he listened as she started to talk to him without taking her eyes off the ground, clearly scared about what she was telling him, but Dean knew she wasn't scared of him. She was scared of Detective Johnson.

Heidi: 'He wants to put me on the witness list. For the trial. The state versus Karl Stevenson. Six counts of sexual assault, one count of assault and murder, and. . . . .one count of assault and attempted murder. Everyone but the second victim refused to testify, I'm the only other one left and because I said no he won't leave me alone. But I won't do it. I won't relive what he. . . . what that man did to me just so that Johnson can get himself a fancy promotion for locking the guy up.'

When she was finished, Heidi kept her head down and waited for Dean to speak. She didn't look at him, instead she just kept her eyes on the ground. When she had listed the charges, the last one she had mentioned had been about her. She still didn't know how to process that. Stevenson was being tried for assaulting her and nearly killing her. It didn't seem real before, but now that Dean knew it changed things. She also knew that Dean had picked up on her hesitance and probably knew why, and hoped he wouldn't say anything about it. As she was thinking about that she jumped slightly as she felt a hand on her arm and looking up saw that Dean had moved next to her.

Dean had picked up on when she had struggled with telling him the last charge against Stevenson, and had known that it was the one relating to Heidi. He decided not to say anything as he didn't want to make her more upset about all of this then she already was.

Dean: 'You don't have to testify. I'll make sure that Johnson understands that. As long as you are sure that this is what you want, I will talk to him.'

Heidi didn't know what to say. She had been struggling with this on her own for the past month and then Dean comes along and offers to fix it for her with one conversation. She had never thought that it could be that easy, and just hoped that it would work.

Heidi: 'Thank you. If you are okay with doing that for me, then I would really appreciate it.'

Dean: 'I'm okay with it. I don't want to see you get upset over this. It's not right that he should be allowed to harass you about it if you've already said no.'

He put his arms around her in a comforting gesture, so she would know that she wasn't alone in dealing with this. In return she rested her head on his shoulder, glad for the company he gave her, and also feeling relieved about telling him. It was nice to know that she wouldn't have to deal with Johnson by herself anymore.

Dean: 'One more thing. This isn't just a one time thing you know. If you want to talk about anything else just come and find me. I will always be here. I know that you haven't spoken to anyone since that night and I have to admit that I have been worried about how you are coping with it all. I just want you to know that I am here day or night if you need me.'

Heidi listened to what he said, and instinctively pulled her sleeves down over her hands, consciously hiding her secret that was her coping method, but a method that not everybody else would understand. She was glad of Dean's offer, thinking that if she talked to him, it would stop her need to use the pen-knife at work, ultimately reducing the risk of being found out. She also trusted Dean, so she knew that if she talked to him he wouldn't tell anyone else and he wouldn't recommend she speak to a professional. It would just be the two of them. She liked this idea and so told him that she would like that and was grateful for the offer.

Dean was thankful that Heidi agreed to talk to him sometimes, as it meant he could keep an eye on her and help her if she needed it. It also helped to settle his nerves and the anxious feeling that he had when he watched her pull on her sleeves, as it to cover something up that she didn't want him to see. He was slightly concerned by this action, and knew what it could mean. But he didn't want to think about that, instead just praying that he was wrong and that if Heidi ever felt like resorting to doing that as a last means of trying to cope with what happened, she would talk to him and he would be able to stop her. However this reasoning didn't stop the uneasy feeling he had growing inside of him that told him he was already too late.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When Dean had told her that Detective Johnson wouldn't be bothering her again, Heidi hadn't been able to believe how easy it was for Dean to get Johnson to back off. The day after he and Heidi had spoken Dean had called Johnson and organised a meeting. They had met at a mutual place and Dean had very politely but harshly asked Johnson to accept Heidi's answer that she wasn't going to testify at Karl Stevenson's trial and to leave her alone.

Johnson hadn't been too happy with Dean approaching him and intervening with something that didn't concern him, but Dean didn't care. He had explained to Johnson that Heidi was struggling with getting past her ordeal and him badgering her wasn't going to help. Dean had then made it very clear that if he came near Heidi again he would make sure his Chief would know that he had been harassing a victim from his case and would also make sure that Johnson didn't get that very lovely promotion that would further his career and earn him an even nicer pay check.

Johnson was clearly shocked that Dean knew what was in store for him if this case was prosecuted and won, but he knew that Dean was very serious with his threats. He finally agreed to leave Heidi alone after Dean made one more threat against him, saying that he would tell Michelle what he had been up to. Dean knew that this revelation would make Michelle hesitant about starting a proper relationship with Johnson and would also make her trust in him falter. Nobody around the station really liked Johnson but they didn't say anything and put up with him for Michelle's sake as they all knew that she liked him and wanted more than just a casual thing.

Dean was happy that he had managed to sort out this problem for Heidi because he knew that she could now focus on helping herself to deal with that night at Stevenson's house. He would also be helping her in any way he could but subtly, so as to not let on to Heidi that he was extremely worried about her mental state. He knew that if she suspected that he knew anything was really wrong (if he found out her secret) she wouldn't let him get close to her again. Dean needed her to stay open to him and trust him if he was to help her, knowing that he was the only one she had spoken to about anything to do with Karl Stevenson since that night.

He knew that she hadn't spoken to the psychiatrist that the hospital had recommended and she hadn't spoken to anyone else either. Going through a traumatic experience such as being attacked and nearly raped wasn't something that anybody just dealt with and left in the past. And he knew that Heidi was no different, especially when it had only been around a month since that night.

Dean's suspicions from their talk yesterday had only built since he had been thinking about it. He had done some research to try and gain some insight into what Heidi was going through, and so that he could be prepared if his suspicions were true. However as he had read some books and articles that he had acquired from the library last night he became more aware that his suspicions were looking very real, and it scared him. He wasn't certain about anything, and knew that the only way he would be definitively sure was to talk to Heidi about it and see what she said. He didn't want to do that though until he was more sure of his suspicions and could stop her from denying the truth to him when he finally did talk to her. The only way he was going to be able to help her was if she let him, and if she wouldn't admit the truth to him, or herself, it would make things a lot harder.

However today, even though Dean could see that Heidi was still struggling and was still obviously not okay, he could also see that she was better than she had been in the past few weeks. Dean knew it was because she didn't have Johnson to worry about anymore. Heidi had been more grateful to him for sorting out Johnson than he thought she should be. All he had done was get him to back off, it was Heidi that had really done something great. She had had a good day today, and had been a lot more like her old self than she had in the past few weeks.

She had laughed with the team and hadn't closed herself off to them as much as she had been doing lately. She was still quiet and introverted, but the fact that she was engaging in a proper conversation with them told Dean that today was a good day for Heidi, even though he knew that it probably wouldn't last. He knew that tomorrow Heidi could go back to being withdrawn and reserved, and would block them all out like she had been doing since she was assaulted.

Dean was happy to see that the old Heidi was still there; Heidi had hidden her old self away where nobody could see her or hurt her anymore. Dean knew it was a coping mechanism people used when they had been through a trauma, and he also knew that it was listed as a sign in the books he had read. The books said that people would close themselves off from their family and friends and would shut down from the real world. They would still live normally and go about their normal lives like going to work or school etc., but they would be living in their own world at the same time. A world where the only person there was them and nobody would be there to shout at them or judge them or bully them, things that would make it worse and put them under more stress then they already were.

A small minority of these people would bring extra attention to themselves without meaning to by acting completely different to how they usually are, and not just shutting themselves off from people. These people could stop talking for days, sometimes weeks at a time; they could suffer from small periods of catatonia that might last a few minutes or a few hours; and they could also suffer from delusional episodes where they relive the trauma that made them start in the first place, and these episodes would make the person upset, scared, angry and, depending on the trauma, violent in order to protect themselves.

So far Dean knew that Heidi had started to close herself off from the team, but hadn't noticed any of the other signs from the book for which he was grateful. However this first sign scared him more than it should, because it was one more sign that Dean could confirm from the books as a yes, as well as bringing him closer to confirming his suspicions, and he really wished it wasn't.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

'I can trust him.' That thought was the only one in Heidi's head. 'I can trust him.' It had been five weeks since Dean had gotten Johnson to leave her alone. Two months and one week to the day since Karl Stevenson had attacked her. Other than not having to worry about Johnson anymore nothing much had changed. The team had all pretty much forgotten about what she had gone through. They had all dealt with it and moved on. It was easy for them though, they weren't the one who made friends with him, who grieved for him and with him, who trusted him. It still made her feel sick. Thinking about his name and the word trust in the same sentence.

The only other person apart from her who hadn't forgotten was Dean. She had had a good day, the day he told her that Johnson wasn't a worry anymore, the best day she had had in that following month. It was also the only good day she had had. She hadn't had another one as of yet. She had spoken to Dean two more times since their first conversation, and in one of those talks Heidi had brought it up, the pain she felt that everyone else could move on so easily while she couldn't. Why they could live their lives like nothing had happened while she lived every day in constant fear that she would find herself in the same situation again, but this time she wouldn't be able to do anything to stop him from going too far. She may not have actually been raped, but that didn't mean her assault was nothing. And Dean knew that.

He made her a promise, that he would never forget what she had been through, and would never just move on with his life without knowing that she would be moving on as well. While she was still struggling and still hurting and wasn't able to move on like the others had, he would be there with her through it all, even if there were times that she didn't want him around and didn't want his help, he would still be there. He wouldn't abandon her or leave her.

It was these words that were in her head with that one thought. 'I can trust him.' These words were the basis for this thought. She knew that these words were more than just words. And her trust for him was more than what she used to have toward him. When on her first day he partnered himself with her and for the few months after that, and he told her that it didn't matter that he was her team leader, it didn't matter if she thought it might be inappropriate to talk about with him because he was her team leader, it didn't matter if she broke down in tears and cried for hours and embarrassed herself in front of him. None of that mattered, because what did matter, the most important thing, was that she could trust him.

From that day she had always trusted him, but after hearing those words she knew that her trust for him wasn't the same as then. It was different because now, she trusted him with everything. She knew she could tell him anything. She could talk to him and he would understand and listen and help her. Maybe so would the others if she gave them the chance and trusted them this way as well, but none of them had shown her that she could do that, that she could put her whole life in their hands and know that she was safe with them, no matter what.

But if this was the way she felt about Dean, that she could tell him absolutely everything and not have to worry about his reaction or him telling anybody else, then why couldn't she tell him the one secret that she wished she could. The one thing that she knew she needed help with more than anything, but that she knew she would never, could never willingly give it away herself. Why was her cutting the one obstacle that would taint that trust she had in Dean, and why did she have the most awful feeling that somehow, he already knew about it, but was waiting for her to trust him enough, more than she ever would, to come to him herself.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

THIS TAKES PLACE SEVEN WEEKS AFTER DEAN TALKS TO JOHNSON, TWO WEEKS AFTER THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER. TWO MONTHS AND THREE WEEKS SINCE HER ASSAULT.

She was floating. She couldn't feel anything. No pain. She thought she would. She thought she would feel something, anything, but nothing came to her. She was just floating with no feelings at all. And for that she was glad. She didn't have to worry about anything just yet. She could just be alone in her head, giving her chance to try and forget about what she had had to go through today.

No one was supposed to know who she was. The police were meant to keep her identity a secret, Johnson had promised her. She should have known it wouldn't be that easy to keep him away. She knew what he was like, she knew he was relentless. He wouldn't give up just like that. And now, everybody knew that she was Karl Stevenson's last victim. They knew what he did to her. They knew that she nearly killed him. They knew that she saved his life.

There had been reporters outside the station all day, since the press conference. The one where Johnson released the details of what was happening with the Stevenson case and trial. The one where he reviewed all the evidence they had so far, where he told everybody the witness list for the trial, and where he released a confidential list of the victims names. The same list that her name was on. Only the police and Rescue knew there were eight victims in total. The public were only aware of seven victims, the first six and Becky Stevenson. That had been the agreement, to protect Heidi from the media and to prevent the public from finding her and questioning her about why she saved Stevenson's life after everything he had done to his victims, to his wife and to her. Why she would do that.

They had only been in the office for half an hour when Vince ran up the stairs, venom oozing out of him and fire in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to kill someone. So did everybody else once he turned the television on and made everyone watch the same press conference he had just listened to in his car on his way to the station. Nobody said anything as they all watched Johnson in his brand new suit, standing outside the police headquarters, giving his speech with a look of pure smugness on his face that told everybody in the room that he knew exactly what he was doing. Clearly Dean's 'friendly advice' about leaving Heidi alone and him threatening to tell Michelle what Johnson had been doing to Heidi, had eventually worn off and Johnson had come back with a new burst of confidence that he would win and Heidi would finally fold and testify for him.

This time though, it looked like he wasn't trying to get Heidi to testify at the trial himself, more like put her out there for the public to have their turn at persuasion, like putting a sheep in a field of wolves knowing what would happen. He thought that by the public pressing her to answer them as to why she wouldn't help to put this monster away and even by the victims themselves coming to her for answers, it would be the final push to get her to agree to testifying, bullying her into making every one else happy except herself. Putting herself through hell so every one else could rest easy knowing that Karl Stevenson would forever be behind bars till the day he died.

Dean didn't even watch the end of the conference before he stormed out of the station and took off at high speed in one of the patrols. The next time anybody saw him was two hours later when they learned that he had been talking to the Chief Police Commissioner (CPC) who had had no idea what Johnson had done. Dean hadn't left until Johnson had been severely reprimanded and suspended, with reinstatement happening only after the Stevenson trial. The CPC had also revoked his promotion and made an example out of him as a warning to other detectives.

It was only then that Dean left and came back to the station, now ready to confront the reporters the same way he had the CPC. Afterwards he went looking for Heidi, wanting to tell her that Johnson hadn't gotten away with his actions and had been punished. But he couldn't find her anywhere, and having searched the entire station without success finally asked the team if they knew where she was. Everybody was still slightly in shock from what they had witnessed, and so weren't really paying attention to him, while Michelle had already left the team and retreated back into her office, to the privacy and safety of her space where she could be alone to process what the man she thought she knew and loved was truly capable of.

She never thought Johnson could do something like that, be so heartless and cruel while the whole time he knew that he was hurting someone so much with his actions. The look on his face, Michelle recognised, because she had seen it often when he had just closed a case or won at trial. She felt sick to know he was now showing it in relation to ruining someone's life, and hurting her at the same time. She didn't know what to do about her relationship with him now, but one thing for certain was that she wasn't going to let him just use excuses to explain it all away. He was going to tell her the truth and tell her why he thought this was the best way to handle such a sensitive case, and then she would let him try to persuade her to not end the relationship and tell her that this meant nothing, while she already knew that they couldn't salvage their already rocky relationship after this.

It was Jordan who eventually took Dean aside and quietly explained that Heidi had left after watching the press conference and nobody had seen her since. They had tried to find her but hadn't been able to and so had given up, thinking that she would come back when she was ready. Only she hadn't, and none of them wanted to think of what could have happened to her, all of them feeling slightly guilty about not looking harder for her, knowing how upset she must be and therefore how vulnerable a state she was in right now. An easy target for anyone.

After hearing that nobody knew where she was Dean had again left the station in a hurry and started to look in known places that Heidi might go. After that failed he made his way to Heidi's house, thinking it was an obvious place for people to look so she probably wouldn't go there if she didn't want to be found, but also thinking that it was a last desperate attempt at finding her before he called the police, to help him this time instead of to shout at them.

At the same time as Dean was worried sick about her, Heidi was coming back down from her high and was realising what had just happened. That floating feeling she had, and not being able to feel anything was from a rather big loss of blood that had occurred after one of the cuts had gone too deep.

It had been two weeks since her revelation that Dean was someone she could properly trust and not just someone who said that but didn't mean it, and she hadn't cut in that whole time. She hadn't felt the need to. She was happy, thinking that it meant she was starting to deal with the whole Karl Stevenson ordeal and was getting better without anybody else's help. And then today happened.

While the team's eyes had been glued to the television screen and Dean had gone AWOL a little while earlier, Heidi had slowly and quietly made her way out of the station and home, hoping that she could get there without being accosted by a member of the public or the media. Luckily she wasn't, but had left just in time to see two news vans pull up outside HQ, and start trying to make their way inside, but hadn't been able to before Vince closed the doors off and wouldn't let anyone in or out.

When she had gotten home Heidi realised that she had left her car at HQ, but had more pressing matters that pushed to the front of her mind apart from her car. At first she hadn't done anything accept fall to the floor of her bedroom crying, hoping that she would cry herself to sleep and when she woke up it would all be a nightmare, and none of it really happened. But she hadn't fallen asleep, instead just sat there crying and crying until she used up all her tears. That was when she knew she needed something else to help her. She needed another way to try and get her to sleep.

She had made her way into the bathroom and found the razor blade in the back of her cupboard, where she had put it when she thought she didn't need it anymore. She had sunk down to the floor and taken off her jacket, rolled her sleeve up and pushed the blade into her skin. It hadn't just been once this time, she had done it a couple of times before she lost control and made a mistake when she pushed too much and the blade went deeper into her arm than before.

She had quickly dropped the blade and hurried to stop the bleeding before it got too bad, but stopped when her arm was under the water and she started feeling light-headed, dizzy, and slowly felt her eyes start to close. She didn't fight as consciousness was taken from her and sank back onto the floor again, this time tumbling into a reclining position on the floor as her ability to keep herself upright disappeared and she felt herself slip into a deep sleep which she somehow knew wasn't a good thing. But when she was finally unconscious, the way she felt and the way she knew she had no worries anymore was so appealing to her that she didn't want to wake up. She wished she could stay like that forever.

Only one thought brought her back from her heaven.

Dean.

Heidi just managed to clean up all the blood from the bathroom floor and sink, and clean her arm with warm water and disinfectant, bandage the cut up and change into clean clothes before she heard a knock on the door. She knew it would be Dean so hurriedly threw her bloody clothes into the washing machine and went to answer the door, making sure that her cut wasn't leaking blood through the bandage. She could see how relieved Dean was when she opened the door, and immediately felt guilty, realising that she was the cause of his worry. She didn't get a chance to tell him she was fine before he had pushed her back into her house, shut the door behind him and turned around again to hug her fiercely.

Dean: 'You had me so worried.'

Heidi: 'I'm sorry. I just needed some time to myself.'

Dean: 'I know, but I wished you had called me so I knew you were okay.'

Heidi: 'It's hard to call you when you're having a screaming match with the CPC.'

Dean looked at her in surprise, quite shocked that she knew where he had gone, but his surprise soon lessened soon after he realised that she understood where he would be going, seeing as how he was the one to talk to Johnson and get him to stop harassing her. His fury would have been evident, but he didn't regret his actions, especially now that he had the comfort of knowing that Johnson had been taken off his pedestal of fame and sent back to the status of junior detective.

He led her over to her sofa, happy to see that she looked alright, but knew that her outside appearance could be totally different to how she felt inside. They sat down and Heidi allowed Dean to keep her in his hold, feeling safe and secure in his grasp as they both just sat there, feeding off the other's feelings of comfort, relief and distress over the day's events.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

THIS CHAPTER IS THREE MONTHS AFTER HEIDI WAS ATTACKED. THE LAST CHAPER WAS TWO MONTHS AND THREE WEEKS. THIS ONE IS NOW TWELVE WEEKS WHICH IS THREE MONTHS.

Everyone was both surprised and pleased at how Johnson's press conference hadn't caused a circus out of the public, and at how quickly the media lost interest in Heidi after the CPC had arranged another interview the next day to explain how Johnson's actions were unethical and upsetting to the victims, and the trial was now in jeopardy because of his unlawful conduct. He also made it clear that anybody who didn't comply with his order to leave the victims alone, especially Heidi, and to respect their privacy, would be arrested for tampering with an open police investigation and conspiracy to obstruct the court of law from doing its job and taking Karl Stevenson to trial for his crimes.

Eight days later and the media had eventually given up on trying to talk to Heidi, and got the message that the CPC wasn't joking around when two of them were arrested after sneaking into the station and taking photos of Heidi and the team for their article on how Heidi was the one to stop Karl Stevenson. They claimed it was good publicity for her and that everybody would be thankful to her for what she did, except they missed out the part where they were also going to write about how she was the eighth victim and narrowly escaped the same fate as the previous victims, as well as how she had saved his life with the same hands that she had used to try and save the life of his seventh victim and wife. How they planned on writing that she had saved his life because of some sort of psychological connection that victim's make with their attackers. A sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

However that was the last problem they had to deal with, and it had been pretty quiet ever since. They were able to get back to normal and resume their jobs without people they rescued recognising Heidi as the 'victim of that Stevenson rapist, the one that got away.'

Michelle had talked to Johnson and explained in a very calm manner, a complete contrast to how she felt inside, that she no longer wanted anything to do with him and asked him to 'lose her number for good'. He didn't listen and bravely came to the station to ask Michelle for a second chance. However he didn't get further than the stairs when Dean spotted him and forcefully removed him from the premises. Their altercation brought every one out to see what was happening, and the situation ended up making Heidi upset and Michelle angry that he hadn't listened to her. This is when every one found out what Heidi's problem with Johnson was that day a couple of months ago, when Dean revealed that this is what he does. He hounds people and constantly corners them until they agree to do whatever he wants.

Michelle stood her ground and told Johnson that Heidi wasn't weak and never gave in to him, she didn't let him break her, and she wasn't going to let him do it to her either. She gave him a choice about whether he would prefer leaving them all alone voluntarily or whether he wanted to be arrested, since he shouldn't actually have been anywhere near the station, having been told to stay away from the Stevenson case. That meant that he couldn't come near the station, because Heidi was a part of the case and he would be breaching the orders of his Chief. Johnson had made a sensible choice, and left voluntarily, not happy about it but knowing that right now he had no chance of digging his way out of the very large hole he was currently in. They hadn't heard from or seen him since.

Heidi had reverted back to her introverted personality, the same way she was after that night, and this time no matter how hard any of them tried she wouldn't come out of it for even a few minutes. The only time she really talked was on a rescue, but was subdued and shut down the rest of the time.

Even Dean hadn't been able to talk to her recently, although she had allowed him to come by her house a couple of nights and would just sit there with him, in silence, either watching the television or listening to him tell her stories about him, Chase and Lachie as children and teenagers, smiling at the funny ones, but never managing to laugh, even a little. But for Dean a smile was enough, and he knew that she was still there with them.

He knew she would talk to him again when she was ready, but for now he was just content with being able to come and sit with her, look after her and convince himself that she was okay and that no matter what happened she would always be okay. She had proven that to him with this second obstacle with Johnson, and even though his suspicions were still there, right at the front of his mind and growing every day, he had faith that if he was correct and his suspicions were true, eventually she would tell him.

Eventually she wouldn't be able to do it alone anymore and that would be the time she would need him the most and he would be there for her, not judging or criticising her for not coming to him sooner, just happy that she finally had come to him. So that he could help her just like he knew everybody else would, because since Johnson released that statement, he started to notice that the team were realising just how not okay Heidi was, and how as they moved on with their lives every day, Heidi was stuck in a nightmare she couldn't escape from, and they knew that sooner or later she would need their help waking up.


	9. Chapter 9

Hello everyone, first I wanted to start by saying thank you so much for all the reviews and all the requests for me to keep going with this story and hurry up with a new chapter. Well I'm happy to say here is that new chapter. It's not very long but was a nice easy one to get me back into writing this story again. All your support has been amazing and was what brought this story back to life for me.

I hope you all enjoy this chapter, please leave a review and let me know what you think. :)

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Michelle was watching Heidi as she sat at her desk, supposed to be checking and signing off on reports before she filed them. However she couldn't draw her eyes away from her youngest rescue team member. At only twenty four Heidi was the 'baby' of rescue, and people, especially her team, never second guessed treating her like it. Not in a bad way, like she was incompetent and couldn't do things without supervision, but like they felt she needed protecting more than the rest of them while out on rescues, and helped her out more than she needed it. For the team it was an older sibling relationship type thing, for Michelle and Vince it was the parental instinct in both of them.

And for Michelle at the moment that instinct was on high alert concerning Heidi; it had been since that night four months ago with Karl Stevenson.

Since then Michelle had been careful and cautious when she assigned the team to a rescue, changing things round a bit and keeping Heidi at HQ for most of the complex and serious rescues. She knew the rest of the team understood, which is why she hadn't had any complaints of people not likng the new rosters and being a person down at these rescues that generally needed all hands on deck. Vince had stepped in to fill Heidi's place when needed, and even Michelle had been down to a few rescue sites, leaving Heidi to run things from HQ. So far things had been working out fine like this, and Michelle was certainly a lot happier knowing Heidi was here with her, safe and where she couldn't be hurt again.

To be honest that was where most of Michelle's paranoia concerning Heidi came from, the fact that she couldn't save Heidi from being attacked and nearly killed by Karl Stevenson, and the fact that she thought of it as her fault when Heidi bonded with Karl over his wife Becky, because she had been the one to let Heidi treat Becky instead of assigning her to something else. If she had, would any of this have happened? This was the thought that had been running through her mind for so long until recently, knowing that now thinking this way wasn't going to do much good. What happened, happened, and now she had to focus on the present and the future and Heidi. That was all that mattered now.

All of that was one reason she had been keeping Heidi from rescues, but not the entire truth. The other part of her decision came from Heidi's recent behaviour in the past few weeks since Johnson (just thinking about him made her blood boil that press conference that had caused Heidi to shut down more than she had already, and she hadn't talked properly, as in one full sentence, for so long people were starting to wonder if she could anymore.

So with all that in mind Michelle had decided that for her own safety and the safety of the team and patients, Heidi was better spending some more time at HQ helping her out instead of being out in the field where anything could happen. And Heidi hadn't complained. She had seemed a lot happier with this arrangement than she had before, almost like she was waiting for this to happen so she didn't have to ask for it herself. And Michelle probably knew that the reason for that was because if she had asked for time off or to be taken out of the field, there would be questions and rumours starting up about her competency and her mental health following the Karl Stevenson debacle that Heidi wouldn't want or need. She wasn't crazy, everybody knew that, but it wouldn't stop people talking.

Up till now Michelle had been keeping Heidi back for just over half of all the rescues that the team performed each week. It had been five weeks and the arrangement was working as well as Michelle hoped. Heidi hadn't really changed much in respect to her new working arrangement, she was still the same person she had been before, after Karl Stevenson, only Michelle could see that Heidi had started to relax a little more every day since her work was cut down. She didn't seem as stressed or panicked as she had been and Michelle noticed that the look of fear that came over her face every time a new rescue was announced had gone, only to be replaced with a look of slight anxiety that quickly disappeared when she was told she wouldn't be going. Michelle knew it wasn't much, but it was a sign of some improvement that she hoped showed that Heidi would be okay and she would come back to them soon.

Watching her now, as she was writing up and filing some of the reports that she had been acting rescue manager on, Michelle could see glimpses of that innocence that Heidi had always carried with her, the innocence of someone who hadn't seen half as much as what Heidi had and been through what she had been through. That innocence that had quickly disappeared four months ago when it was viciously ripped away from her and transformed her life and her way of living from being carefree and naive, to being scared and wary of everything and everyone and lead to her trust being shattered.

Michelle could still remember, more clearly than anything else in her life, that night that she and Jordan had raced to Karl Stevenson's house after they had learned that Murray Lister was the wrong guy, and the real rapist was still out there; after Jordan had told them about Heidi visiting Karl and him having a serious glass wound on his arm and how they all held their breath as Jordan called her, begging her to answer her mobile, only for it to go to voicemail, leaving a horrible feeling in all of their stomachs as to what Karl could have done to her, knowing very well what he was capable off. Watching Johnson race out of HQ while calling in backup to Karl's house, and then following him, wanting to be there and needing to be there for Heidi, for their baby girl, hoping that they wouldn't get there too late. It turned out they did.

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The next chapter will be Michelle's recall of the night Karl Stevenson attacked Heidi, following on from this last chapter with Michelle remembering that day. I decided to split it up into separate chapters instead of posting it as one big one. Hope you all are looking forward to it, it should be up soon. :)


	10. Chapter 10

I just wanted to let people know that I am still going with this story and I have a chapter half written at the moment. It's an extra long chapter so it's taking a while to write, along with all the Uni assignments I have. I appreciate your patience, except for one guest who left a rather rude review that I don't appreciate. I am really busy at the moment, this week I have five assignments to do all for next week which obviously takes priority. I'm sorry if this guest feels like they will have to abandon my story, surely they know how busy life can be. I will have the next chapter up as soon as I can and I promise this story will be finished. As to when I don't know, but I will not leave it like this. Thank you to the rest of you for your patience and sticking with this story. It means a lot, any one who wants to leave its your prerogative but I'm sorry to see you go. xx


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